PROFITABLE PORT

PORT MACKENZIE — It took five years but according to the borough’s port director, the port has started to make money.

Wednesday, port director Marc Van Dongen spoke about the port’s progress from the balcony outside his office. In the background was proof of his claims.

At the dock, which dominated the view from Van Dongen’s office, sat the Clipper Tivoli. The ship arrived Monday from China with 16,000 tons of cement on board. NPI, the main tenant at the port, had brought the ship in and plans to sell the cement to businesses in Southcentral, Van Dongen said.

Van Dongen said he believes the operation will lower the cost of cement in the state.

“All the cement comes into the Port of Anchorage and whatever that company decides to sell it for, that’s the price you pay,” he said.

Van Dongen said former Gov. Bill Sheffield told him Anchorage’s port took six years to turn a profit.

“We did it in five,” he said.

And, he said, the port was constructed using grant money and hasn’t tapped into borough funds. He said that so far this year the port has taken in $830,000 in revenue. He expects they’ll see another $70,000 before the fiscal year ends this summer.

“I expect we’ll be close to a quarter of a million dollars in the black this year,” he said.

Bringing in cement means a new commodity has been added to the list of things the port has handled. Before this, he said, they were mostly dealing in wood chips, which were loaded via conveyor onto waiting ships and exported. Next year, he said, he expects a ship exporting scrap metal to China will dock at the port.

Cement also means the port has moved into importing, rather than just exporting.

Wednesday, the cement was trucked up to a warehouse on a bluff above the dock. Van Dongen said that inside the warehouse they were popping open the 3,300-pound “super sacks.” The cement would then be piped into trucks waiting outside.

Future plans for the port, Van Dongen said, are vast. This year, he said, they hope to expand the barge dock to 1.5 times it’s current size with a pending federal grant. The next step would be to expand the deep draft dock so tractor-trailers can drive out there and make a loop rather than having to turn around on the dock.

And they are hoping for more business. Just that morning, Van Dongen said, he’d given a tour to executives from CH2M Hill who is bidding on a contract to provide modular housing on the North Slope. Their bid, he said, counts on being able to bring the modules into the port. He said they could even assemble them right on the barge dock.

There’s also talk of a company mining for coal in Sutton shipping its product out through Port MacKenzie. Van Dongen said the numbers look good and the operation could be competitive with other coal mining operations in the state.

And then there’s the ferry. In 2010, if everything goes according to plan, building will begin on the landing for the MV Susitna — the ferry the borough plans to make daily commuter runs between Anchorage and Port MacKenzie.

Of course a lot of that depends on the Municipality of Anchorage, where officials have previously expressed opposition to landing the vessel at Ship Creek. Van Dongen said work is steadily progressing to get permits to build that landing. Right now the Army Corps of Engineers, he said, should be in the final stages of its review process.